Table Of ContentSight Loss and Minimum Living Standards:
The additonal costs of living for people of
working age who are severely sight
impaired and for people of pension age
with acquired sight impairment
Katherine Hill, Lydia Marshall, Donald Hirsch and Mat Padley
Centre for Research in Social Policy
Loughborough University
January 2016
© Loughborough University
Published by the
Centre for Research in Social Policy
Loughborough University
Leicestershire
LE11 3TU
ISBN 978 0946831 47 0
All rights reserved. Reproduction of this report by photocopying or
electronic means for non-commercial purposes is permitted. Otherwise,
no part of this report may be reproduced, adapted, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, or otherwise without the prior written permission of
Loughborough University.
The research reported here is independent research commissioned by
Thomas Pocklington Trust. However, the views expressed in this
publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of
Thomas Pocklington Trust.
Note on terminology
In this report the terms ‘people who are sight impaired’ and ‘people who
are severely sight impaired’ are used to describe those who are eligible
for certification as sight impaired or severely sight impaired. Not all
people who are eligible are actually certified. This study is based on
people’s needs, however, the MIS budgets assume that someone claims
all services and financial benefits that they are entitled to. The terms
sight loss and vision impaired cover both of the above categories.
Acknowledgements
The research team would like to express our gratitude to all of the
people who participated in the discussion groups, for their enthusiasm
and hard work in identifying the needs of people who are vision impaired.
We would also like to thank the organisations and individuals who
provided invaluable help in finding people to take part in the groups. We
are grateful to Bill Wilkinson of the Energy Audit Company who provided
expertise on energy consumption costs. Thanks also to Lisa Jones at
the Centre for Research in Social Policy for co-ordinating the groups and
providing administrative support. We are most grateful to Mike Brace
CBE for his advice, and at Thomas Pocklington Trust we would like to
thank Pamela Lacy and Sarah Buchanan for their support with the
project.
Contents
Executive Summary ................................................................................ 1
Introduction ......................................................................................... 1
Methodology ........................................................................................ 2
The additional cost of being vision impaired ........................................ 5
Discussion and conclusions ................................................................ 7
Chapter 1 Introduction ......................................................................... 9
Background ....................................................................................... 10
The Minimum Income Standard ........................................................ 11
Investigating the additional costs of sight loss ................................... 12
Structure of the report ....................................................................... 14
Background Note The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) ................... 15
Chapter 2 Methodology ......................................................................... 17
Specifying the cases ......................................................................... 18
Recruitment ....................................................................................... 21
Running groups ................................................................................. 25
Analysis and costing .......................................................................... 27
Chapter 3 The additional needs of people who are vision impaired ... 29
Household fittings and furnishings – security, safety and maintenance
.......................................................................................................... 29
Household fittings and furnishings – the light environment ................ 33
Household goods and equipment ...................................................... 36
Technology – Home entertainment .................................................... 38
Food .................................................................................................. 56
Personal goods and healthcare ......................................................... 58
Services and Support in the Home .................................................... 61
Additional costs for Guide Dog owners .............................................. 65
Household bills .................................................................................. 66
Getting out and about ........................................................................ 67
Leisure and socialising ...................................................................... 73
Chapter 4 The additional cost of being vision impaired ...................... 80
Additional costs for a single working age person who is severely sight
impaired ............................................................................................ 80
Variations in the budget for a single working age person who is
severely sight impaired ...................................................................... 92
Additional costs for a single pensioner who is sight impaired ............ 97
Chapter 5: Differences in additional needs and costs by degree of sight
loss and life stage ............................................................................... 105
Severity of sight loss – comparing working age sight impaired and
severely sight impaired additional needs and costs ......................... 109
Age related differences – comparing sight impaired working age and
pension age additional needs and costs .......................................... 115
Chapter 6 Conclusions .................................................................... 124
The range of additional needs ......................................................... 124
Variation in costs linked to individual circumstances ....................... 126
Relationship to Personal Independence Payments and Attendance
Allowance ........................................................................................ 128
References ........................................................................................ 131
Figures and Tables
Table 1 The additional cost of transport and travel for a working age
person who is severely sight impaired 82
Table 2 The additional cost of social activities for a working age
person who is severely sight impaired 84
Table 3 The additional cost of technology and electrical goods for a
working age person who is severely sight impaired 86
Table 4 The additional cost of clothing, personal goods and health
care for a working age person who is severely sight impaired
88
Table 5 The additional cost of household fittings, furnishings and
selected household goods for a working age person who is severely
sight impaired 89
Figure 1 Components of additional costs for a single working age
person who is severely sight impaired 92
Table 6 Variations in additional costs for a single working age person
who is severely sight impaired and has no usable sight 96
Table 7 The additional cost of technology and electrical goods for a
pension age person who is sight impaired 99
Table 8 The additional cost of household fittings, furnishings and
selected household goods for a pension age person who is sight
impaired 101
Table 9 The additional cost of personal goods for a pension age
person who is sight impaired 102
Figure 2 Components of the additional budget for a single pension age
person who is sight impaired 104
Figure 3 Overall costs for single people who are sighted and vision
impaired 106
Table 9 Additional weekly costs by category 107
Executive Summary
Introduction
This report gives the results of a research study into the additional needs
and costs faced by people with vision impairment. The research used
the established Minimum Income Standard (MIS) methodology to
examine how much more it costs someone who is vision impaired to
achieve a minimum acceptable standard of living compared to someone
in similar circumstances who is fully sighted.
The additional cost of living faced by disabled people is important both in
understanding the consequences of low income for disabled people and
in assessing the adequacy of benefit payments seeking to help them
cover disability-related costs. Estimating such costs has been made
possible by the development of a Minimum Income Standard (MIS) for
the United Kingdom, which calculates the weekly cost of a minimum
standard of living for different households based on what members of
the public say is needed in order to meet people’s physical needs and
enable them to have the choices and opportunities they need to
participate in society.
Vision impairment covers a broad spectrum of sight loss and the needs
of people in different circumstances will vary. An earlier study (Hill et al,
2015) estimated additional costs for a single person of working age who
is eligible for certification as sight impaired, but not at the ‘severe’ level.
This study extends that research to consider on the one hand the effect
of greater impairment, by looking at additional costs for a working age
1
person who is severely sight impaired; and on the other at demographic
difference, by considering a pension age person who is sight impaired.
Methodology
The research involved bringing together three groups of working age
people who are severely sight impaired, and three groups of pension
age people who are sight impaired with some usable sight to consider
the additional and different things that a single person with impairments
similar to their own would require for a minimum acceptable standard of
living.
Participants discussed in detail the ways in which the MIS budgets
established for a single person who is fully sighted would need to be
different in order to meet the needs of someone with vision impairment.
The method built consensus both within each group and across groups
about what should change and why. These requirements were costed to
create an additional weekly budget for each case under consideration
compared to the main MIS budgets for a fully sighted person. The
additional needs and costs of each case were also compared to the
budget created for the working age sight impaired case in the previous
study in order to explore how severity of impairment and life stage affect
additional costs. For the severely sight impaired case, groups also
considered where the following variations within this category might
make a difference to needs costs: having no vision at all compared to
some very limited sight; using Braille; and being a Guide Dog user.
2
The additional needs of people who are vision impaired
Groups identified a wide range of additional needs that would require
extra spending for someone of working age who is severely sight
impaired and for someone of pension age who is sight impaired, with
some similarities and some differences to those identified for someone
of working age who is sight impaired. The main categories incurring
extra costs are as follows:
Paying for household services
All groups felt that although vision impairment does not stop you from
looking after your home, regular help with cleaning can provide
reassurance that the home is kept presentable. Both the severely sight
impaired working age and sight impaired pensioners also included more
occasional help with ‘deep cleaning’ or larger tasks from time to time,
and identified a need for help with paperwork. Additional help with home
maintenance was also included, with the pension age groups
emphasising that the combination of sight impairment and physical
deterioration could result in a need for extra help around the home with
heavy jobs.
Additional travel costs
A greater need for taxis accounts for much of the increase in transport
budgets including for journeys relating to sight loss, such as attending
hospital appointments or support networks. For working age sight
impaired people with some usable sight, this leads to only a small net
increase in transport costs once public transport concessionary rates are
taken into account. However, the additional costs of transport are much
greater for both severely sight impaired working age people and sight
3
impaired pensioners. These groups included more frequent taxi travel
because they felt that using public transport can be difficult, particularly
at night and on unfamiliar routes.
Additional costs of socialising and going on holiday
Groups stressed the danger of isolation for people who are vision
impaired, and emphasised the importance of social interaction. They
included an additional cost to allow reciprocity when someone
accompanies them on social trips, for example by buying them a meal.
The budget for someone with severe sight impairment was further
increased to allow for more and specialist activities. The budget for a
holiday was also increased for both the sight impaired and severely sight
impaired working age groups to allow for using a hotel rather than self-
catering accommodation.
The use of technology
Technology was particularly important to working age groups to help
address the consequences of sight loss. Both sight impaired and
severely sight impaired groups amended the budget to include an
iPhone, because of useful features such as magnification, screen reader,
and GPS, although the additional cost of this phone is higher in the
severely sight impaired budget due to heavier use. Working age
severely sight impaired groups also included a higher specification of
computer and software. In comparison, the budget for a sight impaired
pensioner includes less use of technology. For example, the pension
age groups included an easier to use standard mobile, made changes to
the keyboard rather than upgrading the computer or adding assistive
software, and included portable and static magnifiers rather than an
electronic magnifier or an iPhone app.
4
The use of pre-prepared food
Severely sight impaired people of working age and sight impaired
pensioners said that it can sometimes be difficult and time-consuming to
prepare food and therefore added some ready meals to the budgets.
This created additional food costs that had not been included for a sight
impaired working age person in the previous study.
Other needs
A range of other items brought smaller additional costs. Severely sight
impaired people need sturdier footwear and to replace some clothes
more often. Vision impaired people in all groups emphasised the need
for additional lighting in the home and the budget includes additional
electricity to cover lighting being on for longer periods. The cost of more
expensive glasses, and for working age groups more prescriptions to
cover sight-related medications such as eye drops, was also included.
The additional cost of being vision impaired
Overall, the additional costs for a working age person who is severely
sight impaired add £116.43 to the minimum household budget. This
adds 60 per cent to the weekly MIS budget for a single person who is
fully sighted, which, excluding rent, is £195.29 a week. Around a quarter
of the additional costs come from household services, a quarter from
transport and travel, with social activities and additional technology costs
accounting for 17 and 16 percent respectively. For Braille users,
additional equipment adds a further £6 to the weekly budget, and for
Guide Dog owners an extra £16 results mainly from an additional need
for cleaning. Severely sight impaired people with no sight at all have a
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